Americas techiest cities offer additional appeal by being destinations that can be reached by cheap airplane tickets and by being home to discount hotel rooms.
Travel & Leisure readers recently judged how tech savvy the locals seem in 35 major U.S. cities and the reliability of wireless coverage.
There appears to be a correlation between savvy tech cities and cities that are home to headquarters of high tech companies and cities that support major academic institutions. In Seattle and San Francisco areas Amazon, Microsoft and Apple can be found. Boston, Providence, RI, and Austin, Texas take the benefits of academia to encourage innovation.
The following were the five techiest cities:
Seattle came in number one for both its great wireless coverage and its tech savvy locals which were also ranked as the countrys smartest.
San Francisco came in second. Free Wi-Fi is regarded as almost a basic right in the Bay Area and is offered in countless coffeehouses, bars, hotels and soon on most buses crossing the Golden Gate Bridge.
Austin, TX, was ranked third. It is the hometown of Dell computers and offers wireless coverage almost everywhere including the Convention Center which can handle up to 7,000 Internet connections simultaneously and Zilker Park.
Portland, OR, came in 4th. Its many coffeehouses and micropubs almost all offer free Wi-Fi. It is home to the Free Geek thrift shop which is filled with gently used tech gear. The citys Food Carts Portland Mobile app is a useful guide to Portlands 600 plus much loved food trucks.
Denver came in 5th place and is home to Lockheed Martin and MapQuest. www.cheapfares.com